The absence of black nominees from this year's Oscars has prompted some of Hollywood’s elite – including to Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith -- to boycott the event.
Both Lee and Smith are angered by the Academy's glaring diversity issues, but frustration isn't the only reaction to ceremony among the black community. To highlight this point, The Peak recently posted a clip from a 2014 radio interview with Oscar-winning actress Mo'Nique on SiriusXM's Sway in the Morning.
Though many actors view the Academy Awards as the ultimate metric for one's value as a performer, Mo'Nique, who won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her performance in "Precious" in 2010, said she was motivated by a different type of recognition
“I understand why people always say, ‘Academy Award-winner,’ because it’s conditioning. And we believe that that Academy Award is the be all to end all -- it’s the greatest award,” Mo’Nique said in the clip above. “For me, it wasn’t the Oscar. For me, it was the Image Award, because as a little girl when I watched the Oscars I didn’t see people that looked like me get that award. So my dream was never to ‘get an Oscar,’ but when I watch the Image Awards and I saw those women that looked like me being called up on that stage, I said ‘One day baby, they’re gonna call my name for that award.’”
She went on to add why it’s important for the black community to support and value the NACCP Image Awards.
“I’m grateful for every award I ever received -- it’s not that I’m unappreciative -- but with the Image Awards, it’s our community saying ‘we think you’re the best,’” she added during the interview. “So for me when people say, ‘Oscar Award-winner,’ and I say to them ‘But you never put in my Image Award. You never say anything about that,’ and that’s ours. And as long as we devalue it, it’ll keep getting devalued. But the moment we take value in ours and our community, and our people saying ‘we think you’re good’ I’m good.”
Check out more from the interview in the clip below.
H/T The Peak
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